GUADALAJARA, Mexico – The stage is set for one of the most anticipated games in Mexican baseball history. The 68th Caribbean Series final will be played on Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET between two teams representing the country at Guadalajara’s Estadio Panamericano de Béisbol: Tomateros de Culiacán (Mexico Green) and Charros de Jalisco (Mexico Red).
All Caribbean Series games will air live on MLB Network and stream on MLBN Direct-To-Consumer and MLB.TV. View the full Caribbean Series schedule here.
How did we get here?
This year’s Caribbean Series had the anomaly of having one country with two representatives in the event. That happened because the tournament was originally scheduled to be played in Venezuela, but was moved from Caracas to Guadalajara in mid-December by the Caribbean Confederation of Professional Baseball. With that decision, Venezuela opted to sit the event out and hold its own regional tournament, dubbed the Serie de las Américas.
So, the Confederation decided to include both the 2025-26 Mexican Pacific League champion, Charros, and the runner-up, Tomateros, in the Caribbean Series. This also occurred in 2008, after Puerto Rico cancelled its Winter League campaign in 2007-08 and did not send a team to the Caribbean Series held in Santiago, Dominican Republic, that year. The result was an all-D.R. deciding game, in which Tigres del Licey defeated Águilas Cibaeñas to capture the Caribbean Series title, after losing to the Águilas in the Dominican League (LIDOM) championship series.
This year, the Tomateros are hoping history repeats itself.
The Charros have defeated the Tomateros in each of the last two Mexican Pacific League best-of-seven championship series, 4-2 in 2025 and 4-0 in 2026. Now, the Jalisco club – playing the tournament in its home stadium -- wants one more win over Culiacán.
“I never imagined that there would be a Mexico against Mexico championship game in a Caribbean Series, because normally it just doesn’t happen,” Charros manager Benji Gil said. “But we haven’t won anything. Our goal isn’t to just get to the final. Our goal is to win the championship.”
Saturday’s game is not only a matchup of two teams representing Mexico, but also of two legendary managers in the country.
Gil, 53, has won six Mexican Pacific League championships, four with the Tomateros and the last two seasons at the helm of the Charros. As a player, he was a World Series champion with the Angels in 2002 and also won two Caribbean Series titles with the Tomateros in 1996 and 2002. And in 2023, he managed Team Mexico to the World Baseball Classic semifinal against Japan, a game in which his club had the lead going into the bottom of the ninth before falling to the eventual champions.
Now, fresh off an 8-6 win over Cangrejeros de Santurce (Puerto Rico) in Friday’s second semifinal game, Gil is seeking his first Caribbean Series crown in six tries. Last year, his Charros lost the championship game to the Dominican Republic’s Leones del Escogido, managed by Albert Pujols in Mexicali, Mexico.
As always, he exudes confidence when it comes to his club.
“If we play our baseball, it’s going to be clear who the best team is in all of the Caribbean,” he said after Friday’s win over Santurce. “That’s a goal we’ve had since Mexicali last year.”
His counterpart in the Tomateros’ dugout, Lorenzo Bundy, 67, also has a celebrated history in Mexico. After several years as a player in both the Mexican Baseball League (LMB, or “summer league,” as it was traditionally called) and the Mexican Pacific League (LMP), Bundy has won three championships in the Winter League circuit, and has now managed in 27 different seasons in the league, tied in that category with legendary skipper Francisco “Paquín” Estrada. The former Major League coach is second only to Estrada in all-time wins in the LMP and, to boot, is coming off two straight championships in the LMB with Diablos Rojos del México, based in Mexico City and often referred to as “the Yankees of Mexico” in the country.
“We’re ready. We’re going to get at it with everything,” Bundy said after his club defeated Escogido, 9-4, in Friday’s first semifinal game.
The Charros will send Luis Iván Rodríguez to the mound to start Saturday’s championship game. The right-hander pitched five shutout innings on Monday against Panama’s Federales de Chiquirí, while notching the win in an 11-4 Jalisco victory. He’s part of a staff that has registered a 3.40 ERA in its first five games at Guadalajara, tops in the tournament.
For the Tomateros, Wilmer Ríos will take the hill, making his debut in this year’s Caribbean Series.
For Culiacán, their ascent to the championship game has been powered by its offense, which has scored 19 runs in its last two games – both against Escogido – after tallying nine in its first three contests.
“Now we’re playing the kind of baseball I know we can play,” said Bundy, who is looking to win his first Caribbean Series in four tries. “The guys never lost faith. They know we have a good team and that we can compete with anyone.”
In Caribbean Series history, Mexico has won 10 titles, two by the Tomateros and none by the Charros. The country is assured of an 11th championship on Saturday. And either Bundy or Gil will raise the trophy for the first time as managers.
“If we play our baseball, there’s nothing anyone can do in [Saturday’s] game to change the result, which is that we’re going to be champions,” Gil said. “We’re the best team. We’ve showed that.”